back in the olden days when I was a surveyor for an oil company, we were required to write legible field notes with a No. 7 pencil or harder. No erasures were allowed and changes were made by drawing a single horizontal line through the entry and initialing. This helped ensure honest, clear records. Finally, even if the field book was soaked by rain or dropped in the Manistee swamp and mud made the writing illegible, you could still discern the imprint and transcribe the field data.
For what it's worth. ---chris Christopher J Wells, Geographer National Wetlands Research Center, USGS 700 Cajundome Blvd Lafayette, LA 70506 Office: 337 266 8651 Cell: 337 288 0737 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wayne Tyson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent by: "Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news" <[email protected]> 06/07/2007 05:26 PM Please respond to Wayne Tyson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To [email protected] cc Subject Archival media Pencils pens and pixels Re: Field Notes: Permanence One way to look at all this is to consult ancient manuscripts, or at least those a hundred years old or so. Somewhere, perhaps in that most permanent (or transitory?) of records, cyberspace, there must be a study of this that assembles anecdotes into data. In my own experience, including confused remembrances of looking at 100+ year-old herbarium sheets with both ink and graphite on them, most, but not all of the ink notes are most legible, but then, I don't know the composition of the ink and how it combines with the paper. I suspect that as long as the graphite stick to some part of the paper, it should remain readable, but perhaps not so easy to read as the best ink. More recently, I have stuck to pencil, mainly because I haven't taken the time to check out the modern inks--all I "know" is that some of the "pens" I've grabbed at the Big Box have, despite their makers' claims, not lived up to their billing. So I am happy to learn about brand names that others have shared here, and plan to go shopping. On the economic/practical front, I don't know how many pencils add up to an eight-dollar pen, but then what's the cost of a pen against ending up with unreadable records? I trusted the makers of various media, such as audio cassettes, floppy disks, and the early word-processors to commit my works of "genius" to future generations, but alas, to coax them to give up their secrets, one must go to a lab that would make the FBI's look like a finger-painting classroom, and pay accordingly. Similarly, I need to make a decision about the slides (that have not been stolen) and prints and negatives mouldering in a warehouse--should I pay thousands to have them transferred to digital form? It appears that even the best CD's are not that good, and who knows what technology will do about antiquating them in a couple of seconds of accelerating history? "Hard" drives are expensive, and also likely to be technologically eclipsed. Rot, rot, rot. A hundred years from now, will anyone know the difference? Will anyone care? If only the library at Alexandria had been on plastic CD's we would still be able to read the wisdom of the ancients, eh? Are we all really a million chumps on a million typewriters whose babel will tower into a bible one of these days, or if that's all there is, should we just keep dancin'? Gotta take another bike ride . . . Cheerfully, WT At 10:32 AM 6/7/2007, Melissa McCanna wrote: >Dear All: > >I used the Pigma Microns consistently throughout college (16 years ago).=C2= >=A0 I recently discovered that the black "pigment" Micron writing in my pers= >onal journals from that time period=C2=A0is fading and bleeding.=C2=A0 As an= > amateur papermaker and bookbinder, I can reasonably argue it is possible th= >at the paper is so poorly made that it is the chemicals in the paper that ar= >e causing the fading, not the Micron pigment itself that is fading.=C2=A0 Re= >gardless, after 16 years in a book on a shelf, these Micron writings are fad= >ing, but still legible. > >For field work these days, I use ballpoint pen on paper, and Sharpies on pla= >stic or wood.=C2=A0 However, Sharpie markings, if in the sun even for a coup= >le of hours a day, fade after a year or less.=C2=A0=C2=A0If the Sharpie mark= >ings are in the shade, they can last about 3 years.=C2=A0=20 > >-Melissa McCanna >Arlington, VA > >-----Original Message----- >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Date:=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 Wed, 6 Jun 2007 06:52:06 -0400 >From:=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0 "Quinn, Michael J Dr USACHPPM" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] >US.ARMY.MIL> >Subject: Re: Pens or pencils for field notes (UNCLASSIFIED) > >Classification:=C2=A0 UNCLASSIFIED=20 >Caveats: NONE > >When working as an assistant curator for a museum, the Pigma Micron pens >from Sakura Color Products Corp, Japan were prized for their permanence. >They use pigment ink, are available in a number of colors and point >sizes, and are available in many of the larger arts & crafts stores.=C2=A0=20 > >Mike > > >Michael J. Quinn Jr, PhD >Toxicologist >Health Effects Research Program >Directorate of Toxicology >U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine >Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21010-5403 >P: 410-436-4164 >F: 410-436-8258 > > >------------------------------ > >End of ECOLOG-L Digest - 5 Jun 2007 to 6 Jun 2007 (#2007-155) >************************************************************* > > >________________________________________________________________________ >AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from= > AOL at AOL.com.
